What is the ip of secure http sites? i.e https sites? It must be definitely different from their non secure conterpart. For e.g meebo - online web IM for AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk messengers and https://meebo.com
How can I find the ip for https://meebo.com??
I tried pinging but cmd doesn't recognize the "https" part so doesn't return any ip

Any ideas guys? :D

The IP address could be the same. https simply means that the connection is encrypted (or secure).
There doesn't have to be a unique IP address (although the website could do that).

FWIW, my ping command does recognize the "https:" part. WinXP Home, SP2

I hope this clarifies things,
WallyH

Thanks wally. But my cmd returns "ping req could not find the host" when I try to ping https://meebo.com

Strange!

The IP address of a secure site does NOT need to be different from the non-secure site. A single IP address can serve regular web pages on port 80 (standard http) and encrypted web pages on port 443 (secure http aka https).

You can telnet to a specific address and port, to determine the IP address that answers for that https server. From a command window try:

Telnet meebo.com:443

You will have to abort the telnet command to exit.

Why do you need to know the IP of the https version of a given site?

Thanks jcdill. I agree. I tried it on cmd but it says "could not open connection to the host on port 23" I guess telnet uses default port 23 to open hosts and its not able to open a connection in this case. I then tried telnet meebo.com 443 on cmd and it opened up a blank telnet window which means its through and connected.

But am still not able to get the ip for it!

I am experimenting my hosts file which is why I need this ip :-)

You have to open the command window first. Then type the telnet command. The response message will tell you what IP address it connects to, like this:

telnet meebo.com 443
Trying 208.81.191.126...
Connected to meebo.com.
Escape character is '^]'.

(I'm on a Mac, so I put a SPACE between the domain name and the port number. You are on a Windows computer, you need to put a COLON as in meebo.com:443 rather than a space)

Exactly.. I did the same thing before.. and as I said it returned an error saying:

"connecting to meebo.com:443...could not open connection to host, on port 23: connect failed"

Your telnet client is not using the port number for some reason! You can't connect on the default telnet port (23) (which is normal, they shouldn't have port 23 open on the server), but it should be able to connect on the specified port (443). Try using a space instead of colon.

You already have the command window open when you are typing the command, right? You aren't doing this in the Start -> Run dialog, right?

Also see this page for more tips on using telnet including a GUI box where you can enter the port number:
Windows Telnet

If you are still having problems, I need to know what version of Windows you have - XP, Vista, NT, etc.

Thanks jcdill.. I'll chk that and get back to you soon..

FWIW, this is what I get:
I don't know why this doesn't work for you, unless you are running a different OS.

WallyH

It doesn't work, because the second ping you show above isn't reaching the SECURE site for meebo.com. Both pings go to the same IP address, but meebo.com uses a different IP address for their https site than for their http site.

Ping uses port 7, but http uses port 80, and https uses port 443. This is why you need to use telnet and SPECIFY the port to determine the right IP address for the secure server (on port 443) for a given domain name.

Keep in mind that your router may be filtering ICMP responses. This means that PING requests will not be completed. TCP/IP is a transport mechanism and the protocols are types of transport that serve different purposes. Some are like a delivery truck (like FTP), a mail truck (like SMTP or POP3), or a newspaper delivery (like NNTP). Each protocol has a different purpose. HTTPS is secured communications using HTTP. They all drive on the same TCP/IP highway, just for different purposes.

If you want the IP address of a domain name such as meebo.com, go to a command prompt and type NSLOOKUP and hit enter.

Then type the domain name and hit enter.

The Name Server Lookup will return the IP address of the domain name or host name that you have requested.

If you want to know what the mail server(s) name(s) for that domain are, then at the NSLOOKUP prompt, change the lookup type from A records to MX records (mail exchanger) by typing the following:

SET TYPE=MX and enter

Then type the domain name again and hit enter. You will then get a list of the MX records assigned to that domain. You can then return to the A record lookup by typing

SET TYPE=A and enter

Then type in the host names for the mail servers and it will return the IP address.

Type EXIT and hit enter to return to the normal command prompt.

Please post an example using NSLOOKUP that finds the IP address meebo.com uses for https. I'm very interested to see how you accomplish this with NSLOOKUP.

Okay. Now guys firstly sorry for being a bit late here in replying.. lemme answer jcdill's doubt first.. am not running it in "run dialog".. am doing it in the cmd window.. also if it can help, my OS is win xp sp2.

Now as for wally, I don't know how you managed to ping for https! Its not working in mine at all.. as I mentioned earlier it throws that error.

As for nslookup, it surely will give the ip as non authoritative reply but it would not differentiate between the http and https, as jcdill rightly pointed, here comes the difference in ports which is 80 and 443 respectively...
So guys where are we, I guess back to square one!

But thanks a bunch jcdill and wally for posting your suggestions... now what can we try next?

Did you try the link I posted up above, showing how to start the windows Telnet GUI? I'm not 100% sure it works in XP SP2 but I believe it does. From the command prompt just type: telnet and hit enter. This should bring up the telnet GUI and then you can select the port.

Am afraid the gui is not available in xp sp2,. unless if I have to install it separately. I could try something on the command prompt version of telnet though.. i.e the window you get when you type telnet in cmd...

Try this tutorial on using command line telnet on Windows:
Tutorials - Servers > Telnet as a Diagnostic Aid

Okay.. I'll try that and get back!

Wow! I'm outclassed here. I'll stop answering, but this sure is interesting stuff!
:D wh